The present invention relates generally to the display of content on a computing device and, more particularly, to displaying visually aligned content of a mobile computing device.
Mobile device users may change the orientation mode of content on a mobile device screen between a portrait layout and a landscape layout by physically rotating the mobile device. In this way, a user may change the dimension of content displayed (e.g., a video shown in landscape mode is larger than a video displayed in portrait mode) based on the physical dimensions of the mobile device screen. The terms portrait and landscape refer to whether a document or content is oriented vertically or horizontally. A landscape layout mode enables the display of content that is wider than it is tall (e.g., a short side of a page runs from top to bottom), while a portrait layout mode enables the display of content that is taller than it is wide (e.g., a longer side of a page runs from top to bottom).
Typically, computing devices define landscape and portrait layout modes with respect to a physical display area (e.g., physical display screen). For example, a smartphone device may define a first long side of the smartphone as the top and an opposing long side of the smartphone as the bottom for content display purposes in a landscape layout mode. Similarly, the smartphone device may define a first short side of the smartphone as the top and an opposing short side of the smartphone as the bottom for content display purposes in a portrait layout mode. Mobile devices may include a default setting wherein the mobile device does not have a defined content viewing layout, thus requiring a user to physically change the alignment of the mobile device (i.e. rotate the device) to change the display layout mode. For example, if a user rotates the mobile device such that a long side of the mobile device is horizontally aligned, then the mobile device may change the display of content to a landscape layout mode. Alternatively, if a user rotates the mobile device such that a short side of the mobile device is horizontally aligned, then the mobile device may change the display of content to a portrait layout mode.